HP Labs India

HP India makes revolutionary keyboard

Financialexpress.com
March 16, 2006

Researchers at HP Labs India have developed a gesture-based keyboard (GKB),a pen-based technology that the company said is a path-breaking innovation that could revolutionise communication in Indian scripts.

Executives of HP, a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally, said the technology could potentially open up the power of computing to vast numbers of new users, all in their own language and without prior knowledge of English or typing.

"The gesture-based keyboard can help bridge the digital divide by simplifying the use of it," said Dick Lampman, HP Senior Vice-President, Research and Director, HP Labs, at a news conference here today.

HP today announced the technology that allows the Kannada script to be recorded and stored directly on the computer.

Company executives said GKB also holds the potential for languages derived from the Devanagari and Tamil scripts to be used in a similar manner. That could benefit more than 1.5 billion non-English speaking people, including Indian, Nepalese, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and other phonetic script users.

HP explained that unlike other prevailing Indic language entry methods which either use bilingual keyboards or display the indic keyboard layout on a monitor, the GKB is a low-cost and rugged solution that helps solve the phonetic language entry problem by allowing users to input data the way most people learn to write -- with a pen.

Click here to read the article at the Financial Express Website